When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

08.17.2007
The Future: Leading Off

Our fair team is in full find-out-the-future mode, so for the first in an occasional series of baseless conjecture, let’s step through what’s in store in the lead-off slot. Shall we? Please — no, after you.

My new man-crush Rajai Davis is making his case to be the Giants lead-off guy next year, either full time or one-half of a platoon with Dave Roberts. With his hotter-than-habanero performance in the orange-and-french-vanilla (.491 OBP, 8–for-9 in SB) Davis becomes the best bet to top the Giants order for the next five years. But keep in mind he’s nearly 27; is he a flash in the pan, a late bloomer, or a flash in the bloomers? 

Other candidates: Fred Lewis is certainly fast enough, but he’s as old as Davis and in his short big-league stint hasn’t demonstrated quite the same lead-off skills — stealing at will, bunting, utter disruption. To his credit, Lewis has always had a knack for getting on base. His lowest minor-league tally was a .361 OBP. Perhaps when Roberts is gone we’ll see a Davis/Lewis platoon, or a 1–2 combo at the top of the order.

Digging deeper into the farm system, Bryan Smith of Baseball Prospectus recently posted a list of leadoff prospects. The good news: he lists two Giants, Emmanuel Burriss and Marcus Sanders. The bad news: Smith trashes both of them.

Burriss, 22, is back in low-A ball after whiffing in high-A San Jose this year. Smith writes, "He's as good of a bet for a leadoff bust as any on this list."

Slightly more optimistic, Smith says this about Sanders: "I think he might be able to be a versatile bench player at the highest level, but an injury was all Sanders needed for his size (170 pounds) to catch up with him."

Sanders is also at low-A, but he's only 21. When he tore up that level as a 19-year-old, he had prospect geeks excited. Perhaps he can recover from his injuries and climb back to exalted status.

Higher up, 24-year-old CF Clay Timpner has posted a strong .375 OBP at Fresno this year, by far the best mark since his college days. He has never been and probably never will be a base stealer (only 12 for 28 at the AAA level). It's a longshot that he becomes a productive big-league leadoff guy.

In Double-A, Eugenio Velez is an intriguing story. The Giants plucked him from the Toronto farm system two years ago. At 25, he's old for his level. He tore up low A last year but is posting only decent numbers this year at Connecticut, with a .348 OBP and a slugging percentage (.403) buoyed by a lot of triples but zero home runs. That's not a good sign. It's also unclear where he would play on the field. The Giants moved him from 2B to the OF this year. I don't know what the scouting report is on his defense.

The bottom line: if Davis and Lewis were 23 instead of 26, observers would say the Giants were set at the top of the order for years to come. But late bloomers are not unusual in this situation. Leadoff hitters must take a lot of pitches and be willing to hit with two strikes. The art of bunting for hits is not widely taught in the minors. If a leadoff hitter has minimal power, outfielders play shallow and cut off bloopers and line drives that might fall in for other hitters.

Let’s be optimistic and say Davis and Lewis become as productive as Dave Roberts in his best years — not elite but useful, even dangerous, if managed correctly. Roberts didn’t make the majors until he was 27.



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[August 17, 2007 4:32 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Anonymous said

I'd like to see Davis and Lewis as 1-2 in the order, until they make us regret it. Good call. Fun to watch, they are.

Also, RIP max roach. :-(

[August 17, 2007 10:38 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

More on Max Roach coming soon. I'm listening to "Max" right now and got an earful of Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus this afternoon, which I learned features Max. RIP indeed.

[August 17, 2007 11:56 PM]  |  link  |  reply
gdog said

Let me throw some numbers at you:

740
821
771
773
733
1071
720
757

Those are Randy Winn's OPSes since 2001. The 1071 was Winn's small sample size in 2005.

I don't think we can expect very much out of Davis. I don't believe for a second that he's a late bloomer. I think we just caught a few good weeks out of him.

[August 18, 2007 12:27 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

What's important with Davis, as with Roberts, is his OBP. Forget slugging. If either of those guys is getting on base at 36, 37% or higher, they're valuable.

[August 18, 2007 2:46 AM]  |  link  |  reply
gdog said

.365 would be Davis' 85th percentile projection. A strong second go-round at AAA might budge that down to 75th.

A 27-year-old guy with no power who's got a 25% chance to have one of the top 80 OBPs in the majors? The only reason I can think of to like him is his low salary.

Sounds like you would have preferred it if the Giants had hung on to Kenny Lofton for the last six years?

[August 18, 2007 10:59 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

>>Sounds like you would have preferred it if the Giants had hung on to Kenny Lofton for the last six years?

Huh? How many times have I told you not to drink and blog. You're making no sense.

If you haven't noticed, I'm as skeptical as anyone about Davis. I fully acknowledge the unlikelihood of him becoming a valuable major leaguer. But I'm also enjoying his moment in the spotlight and hoping against hope he's the exception to the statistical probabilities.

[August 20, 2007 4:05 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

Davis's equivalent OBP in AAA in 2006 was .345, according to Shandler's calculations, so that would be good. BP only has him at .329 in 2006 though.

The better way to view how Davis is doing is by examining his BABIP. Unfortunately, stats like that at the team level is hard to find. Luckily Fangraphs does. His BABIP is horribly in the atmosphere right now with the Giants so that's clearly going to go down at some point.

However, if you view his time with Pittsburgh, his BABIP was about average (each player has his own level he averages, but with little data, the best we can do is presuppose a .300 mean), and still his OBP was .357 with the Pirates, which is good.

Apparently he has been able to work a walk at the major league level thus far, more than he showed when he was in the minors. Basically, he was pretty good in the minors, it is a matter of translating that to the majors. And thus far he has.

So while you have to acknowledge that this is most likely a flukey performance on his part, he clearly had been successful in the minors in getting a lot of walks relative to strikeouts, and not striking out that much period, kind of like a better Juan Pierre, who can't do walks but don't strike out much either. If he can do just that little in the majors, he could have a Juan Pierre- like career over the next 3+ seasons. I would take that.

But I wouldn't rely on that. Just enjoy for now and watch the story unfold, I think that's the best way to enjoy this season.

That and counting off the games and hoping we get a top 5 draft pick. As much as I don't like to see the team lose, I would rather play the young guys more (unless we are showcasing a vet for a trade) even if that leads to more losses (or particularly so).

And a Top 5 pick could net us a top offensive player, I think the best odds of finding a true offensive talent lies in getting a top 5, hopefully top 3, pick overall.